


What's a Hoard to a Mob?

by Dira Sudis (dsudis)



Series: Gameplay Vignettes [2]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Fix-It, Food, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 05:40:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28630401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsudis/pseuds/Dira%20Sudis
Summary: Geralt tries a different approach to problem-solving.
Relationships: Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia
Series: Gameplay Vignettes [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1408447
Comments: 38
Kudos: 307





	What's a Hoard to a Mob?

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fixit for the "Lynch Mob" side quest in Witcher 3, because as I was playing it I got so mad at the choice Geralt had to make that as soon as I'd gotten it over with I exited the game to write my own version. 
> 
> Also you may be able to tell which audiobook I was on this week. 
> 
> Thanks to Hobbit and Anoke for help with this!

Geralt had just run a gauntlet of no less than three separate bandit gangs camped along a two-mile stretch of road in southwest Velen, so when he heard shouts and threats to one side of the road he was on, he considered just riding on. He was tired and blood-splashed already. He didn't want to check on yet another group of humans only to be attacked on sight. None of this was moving him any closer to _finding Ciri_. 

And yet... if Ciri were here, she'd go and see what was happening, and who needed help. And she would say she'd learned that from him.

With a sigh, Geralt reined Roach over a low hill and into sight of the angry humans, a group of roughly-dressed locals. They were surrounding a man on his knees, wearing a gambeson that looked like it was meant to be worn under heavier armor. Distinctive black armor, probably, that had been ditched somewhere so he'd have a chance of blending in.

That was confirmed when he pleaded for his life in a Nilfgaardian accent nothing could hide--or was it not-Nilfgaardian? For just a moment Geralt remembered standing over Cahir while the not-Nilfgaardian Vicovaran was down on his knees, pleading. 

But that had been a long time ago, in another country.

Geralt strode over to the group and asked, in the kind of stern voice that usually at least got people to stop and look at him, what exactly was going on. If the man had done something worth this reaction--if he'd hurt their daughters, for instance--Geralt might not have any problem with walking away and letting them handle it.

Of course it was nothing that simple. "He came into our village, wanting to trade his ring for food!" For a split second Geralt glanced down toward the man's bound hands, wondering if the ring in question was particularly offensive, and then the peasant went on, "But we've got no food, because Nilfgaard burned our crops and looted our granaries!"

Geralt stared wearily at the villagers' spokesman for a moment, then looked down, still wearily, at the Nilfgaardian-or-Vicovaran-or-whatever.

"I want no part of the war, please! I ran away to go home to my wife and daughter!" 

And he'd been hungry enough to try to trade with locals for food; this pillaged country wouldn't have anything he could easily glean or steal as he went. He was desperate, and the villagers, for all they had the advantage of numbers, were just as desperate under their fury. 

Geralt looked up, and then around at the other corpses hanging from the gibbets that lined the road. They had a ripe crop here.

Surely this was enough death. Geralt had already killed so many people today, and there were so many dead here. Did there have to be more? 

Geralt took a breath and decided to try a sideways approach. He gestured to the hanged men around them, carefully angling the motion so it didn't take his hand further from his sword. "Not going to harvest these, then? If you're so hungry?"

The leader of the villagers recoiled; another spat in the dirt and snarled about cannibal witchers. 

"What about him," Geralt went on, before they could actually recover enough to turn on him coherently, tilting his head toward the deserter on his knees. "Gonna cut him up, portion him out? Might make a good meal for the whole village, he's still got some meat on his bones."

The Nilfgaardian cringed, and the villagers all recoiled now, as if denying they'd been about to take a bite of their prey. "That's--how dare--"

Geralt shrugged. "Otherwise, I don't see how killing him solves your problem. You could take that ring he wanted to trade, but if no one around here's got any food to sell you, that won't help. And if you hang him up here with the others, he'll rot and attract ghouls, and you'll be even worse off."

The mention of ghouls got a few of them glancing warily around--as it should. 

"And how do you think we should _solve our problem_ , then, witcher? We're no corpse-eaters! We're decent folk!"

Decent folk who were ready to kill a man for daring to ask for food, but with a war on he supposed the definition of decency had to be elastic. 

"Sell him to me, then," Geralt said. "I've got some food in my pack, more in my saddlebags-- _don't even try it_ \--" Geralt snapped, as one of them sidled toward Roach, who'd stayed by the road where Geralt had dismounted, and the saddlebags she bore. Roach lunged toward the man, her teeth snapping a fraction of an inch from his flailing arm as he tried to reverse direction.

"Like I said," Geralt went on, refocusing on the others. "I'll trade you. He's useless to you, but I can probably collect a bounty on him somewhere. You need food, and I've got that."

The villagers all looked around at each other, seeming confused by the idea of actually getting what they needed, instead of just satisfying their helpless rage. 

"Are there any little ones in the village?" Geralt tried, hoping to prod their thoughts in a gentler direction. "I've got some honeycomb, my daughter always liked that."

That wasn't even a lie. Until he'd been on his way to Kaer Morhen with her, Ciri had never had slightly-singed honeycomb, fresh from an Ingi-burnt beehive. She'd been so quiet and sad, and for once his carefully collected stash of food hadn't included anything sweet. At the sight of the hive he'd said, "want to see something?" without thinking, and when she looked up with a flicker of real interest, there had been nothing for it but to follow through.

She'd smiled, sweet and bright as the honey, and Geralt hadn't even regretted the handful of stings he'd taken, nor the inconvenience he'd caused the bees.

"Daughter?" The leader said warily. "Thought witchers couldn't..."

Geralt shrugged. "You live long enough, something weird is bound to happen at least once. I'm actually here looking for her--have any of you seen a young woman around recently, ashen-haired, with green eyes? She has a scar on her face," Geralt gestured, "almost the same as mine."

The villagers were so turned around by then that they actually stopped to consider their answers, debating whether that cloaked person they'd seen passing through had had ashen hair or just blonde. One said his wife would know, she'd been the one who saw the stranger, and somehow it was half-decided without any of them saying so. They headed off to the village, Geralt walking a little apart from them with Roach, the Nilfgaardian deserter still bound and stumbling along in their midst. 

He kept shooting looks toward Geralt, wavering between hopeful and even more terrified than he'd been back there on his knees. He was clearly trying to figure out if he was going to be out of the frying pan--ha!--and into the fire, if Geralt hauled him all the way to a Nilfgaardian army camp to turn him in.

That also sounded like a lot more trouble than it was worth, but Geralt wasn't about to reassure the deserter only to rile up the villagers again--not when they were about to have even more people on hand to potentially get hurt if Geralt had to draw steel. 

Thinking of that, Geralt had a moment to worry that his stock of traveling food wouldn't stretch far enough to be even one good meal for everyone, if the village was big enough to be worth the name. He was in luck, though; what came into sight, as they followed the dirt track through a stand of trees and around a bend, was just a cluster of three houses. The four men who'd made up the mob were a large fraction of the population--as they approached, three women, one of them very old and bent, and five children, ranging from toddler to probably-old-enough-to-hold-a-sword, emerged. 

None of them were showing the gauntness of really dire starvation, though the little ones weren't as round-cheeked as Geralt suspected they ought to be. This could actually work, then; he could give them enough to feel satisfied with for now, and then they could think about their more practical options with full bellies.

Some gruff semi-introductions were made, and the men recalled that they'd been making a bargain. "Witcher says he'll swap us food for this swine," the ringleader said, aiming a desultory shove at the deserter. 

Both of the younger women and all of the children looked enthusiastic at this, though the old one said, "What you going to do with 'im, witcher?"

"Nilfgaard pays bounties on deserters," Geralt said, which was true, if not actually an answer to her question. Before anyone could press him further, he crouched before the boldest of the children, a girl of maybe four or five years who had stepped away from the others to peer curiously at the various things hanging from his belt. Geralt opened his hip pouch, drawing out an only slightly sticky parcel wrapped in waxed cloth. "Here, do you like honeycomb?" 

That had all five kids surging forward to surround him, and Geralt portioned out the pieces he had ready to hand until all the little mouths were busy, eyes brightened with excitement at the treat. When he looked away from them, all the adults were looking considerably softened. He sucked honey off his fingers and rummaged through the pouch with his other hand. "I've also got apples and a couple of plums..."

The women surged forward, hurriedly collecting everything he had into their apron pockets. They stayed right on his heels as he turned to Roach and opened a saddlebag, and he handed out the stuff he mostly kept for emergencies. "Dried mutton, that'll go a ways, dried fruit and nuts--" Geralt's hand brushed a bottle and he considered whether it would make things worse or better, then figured one wouldn't hurt. "Here, some wine--not much, but it's nice stuff."

It was Erveluce, in fact, which no one in the village had probably had before. They'd probably do better to sell it than drink it, but a taste of something fine wouldn't go amiss in dire days like these. 

"And I've got some bread," Geralt added, shrugging off his pack and propping it between his chest and Roach's saddle. He wasn't eager to let them see inside. He gave them his bread, and the rest of the fruit and meat that he'd tucked away, plus the liver of a bear he'd killed that morning. Then there was a sealed jar of milk he'd picked up just that day, and another of pressed apple juice, some cheese, and a lump of butter, which made one of the women exclaim and nearly cry. 

That was just about all the food he had with him; his fingers brushed another little waxed packet, and he realized it was a sugar doll, the last one of a handful he'd bought from a merchant, a couple of months after Vesemir joined him in searching for Yennefer. He'd kept this last sweet back for months now, just in case he needed it. 

If he handed them that, he wouldn't have a single scrap of food on hand. It shouldn't really matter--he had potions, there was plenty of water available, and he only had to ride a handful of miles in any direction to get to a better-provisioned village where he could buy more food. It took days for hunger to really trouble a witcher, and much longer for him to starve.

But Geralt drew his hand back from that little shape in his pack, and he buckled it shut. "That's all I've got. Fair bargain, right?"

He turned properly to face them, and saw that all four of the men were chewing strips of the dried mutton, and the two oldest children were demolishing a plum each, while the three women already had their heads together, counting over the rest and deciding what to do with it. 

The deserter, hands still bound, was staring wide-eyed at probably more food than he'd seen since he was last in camp; he looked like he might cry.

"Right," Geralt said. "We'll just go, then."

He got a vaguely agreeing grunt from one of the men, a nod from another, and decided not to stick around to try to ask questions about Ciri--never mind hoping to be thanked for what he'd done here. He already had leads on Ciri, he just had to figure out how to follow them. Gratitude was even more of a forlorn hope; he had better things to do than chase moonbeams like that.

First, though, he had to get himself and his newly-ransomed Nilfgaardian away from here alive. Geralt caught the man by the shoulder and turned him back down the track the way they'd come.

He kept his grip and said nothing until they were back where he'd first found them, among the dangling corpses. Geralt stopped there, looking at them. They really were going to attract ghouls, and those folk he'd left weren't going to have energy to spare to do anything sensible with them.

It wouldn't be a good idea for him or his new friend to hang around here long enough to bury them, though, and he wasn't about to expend enough energy to burn all of them with Igni when he had absolutely no food to replenish himself with afterward. 

Time to be done with this whole little incident, then. He needed to get on his way to somewhere he could stock up again. 

He turned to the Nilfgaardian, and finally drew a knife and cut his bonds. The man gasped, though that might have been the pain of circulation returning; he swung his arms warily, wincing.

"You really have a wife and daughter?" Geralt asked. "Or was that just a way to save your skin."

The man shook his head. "My wife, she gave birth just before I had to march North. I named my daughter Beatrys, after my mother. It was my wife who wrote me, begging me to come home to them."

Geralt sighed and decided to believe it. "Stay away from the villages and towns from now on, just follow the water south." Considering what had started all of this, Geralt added, "You know how to fish?"

"I could manage," the man said, "if I had--"

Geralt turned away from him and rummaged in his pack for the hand-net he'd picked up somewhere. He didn't need it; he could hand-catch fish if he had a mind to. The man's eyes lit with hope as he took it from Geralt, and Geralt tried not to think once again of Cahir, holding up a fish that would feed their whole band once it was made into soup. 

"And..." Geralt held out his hand again, holding the other item he'd taken from his pack. "It's a, uh, sugar doll. You can give it to your little girl for a treat, if you make it all the way there without needing to eat it."

The man's fingers trembled a little, but he took the confection delicately, not even crumpling the ends of the waxed paper. "I will, witcher. I thank you. I owe you--"

"Don't," Geralt said sharply, because he knew better than to let _that_ sort of talk go on. If his daughter had been born before he left his wife, he might have had time to start another one he didn't know about, and then where would they be? "Just--if you want to do me a good turn--any time you get a chance, on your way back home. If you find a body," Geralt gestured at their surroundings. "If you can bury it without risking making another corpse of yourself, do so. As deep as you can. Pile rocks over it if that's not very deep."

The Nilfgaardian looked warily toward the dangling corpses. "You were... not joking about the ghouls, then?"

"I never joke about ghouls," Geralt said grimly. "Do _not_ go near battlefields or burial grounds at night. Keep an eye out--you spot a place that's been abandoned... shovel's not the first thing people think to take with them when they have to get out fast. It isn't an obvious weapon, so you shouldn't draw attention, but it's better than nothing in a tight spot."

The Nilfgaardian nodded quick understanding. "As you say, witcher."

Geralt nodded back, and figured that was as good a conclusion to this business as he was going to get. He caught Roach's reins and started leading her down the road again, the way they'd been heading. 

He kept his eyes open for beehives as he walked, now. He was going to find Ciri before too long--he _had_ to--and she might be hungry when he reached her. He'd want to have something sweet on hand.


End file.
